


A Night at the Improv

by gardnerhill



Series: 221b Ficlets by Gardnerhill [49]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Without a Clue (1988)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 15:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15222143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Even Sarah Bernhardt forgot her lines now and then.





	A Night at the Improv

"Mr. Holmes," Lestrade said. "Limehouse is a danger zone, full of Laskars and the like. Who's to say there isn't –"

"A secret society?" Sherlock Holmes spat out the phrase before the police station. His words unreeled rapid-fire with the same contempt. "The stuff of yellow-backed novels! Observe, Inspector! Mr. Prabhalkar is afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis – he _could not_ have knifed Jack Merridew with enough force to cause a broken blade. Yes, he's quite guilty of being a brown-skinned foreigner despised by white Londoners, but 'vox populi, vox dei' has gone far wrong here–"

"I say, Holmes!" Watson called, all innocent bewilderment. "This drunken sailor chap in the cell just used his left hand to write something on the wall!"

Every policeman looked toward the glowering straw-haired tar who'd been rounded up with others in the Limehouse bar fight during Prabhalkar's arrest.

Holmes stared across the station for a full ten seconds of dead silence. Watson stared back, eyebrows arched.

"The … knife … " Sherlock Holmes said, slowly and impressively, "was wielded by a left-handed assailant."

Lestrade looked stern and infallible as he strode toward the murderer. "Release Prabhalkar!"

***

"Performance issues, old man?" Watson asked just as innocently afterward.

Reginald Kincaid glared at Watson. "I don't get stage fright. That was a dramatic pause."

"You forgot your lines."

"Balderdash!"

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2018 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #8, **Descriptive Phrase.** Use one of the following in your work today. Bonus point if you use all of them! (Bonus!) **Broken blade / Police station / Rheumatoid arthritis / Secret society / Vox populi, vox dei / Danger zone / Performance issues / Rapid fire**


End file.
